Back in November, the Los Angeles Times reported that Man of Steel and 300 director Zack Snyder said he had no interest in directing the hotly anticipated seventh Star Wars film. But Vulture has learned that while this may be specifically true—he won't be doing Episode VII—it was a bit of misdirection: He is in fact developing a Star Wars project for Lucasfilm that is set within the series' galaxy, though parallel to the next trilogy. It will be an as-yet-untitled Jedi epic loosely based on Akira Kurosawa's 1954 classic Seven Samurai, with the ronin and katana being replaced by the Force-wielding knights and their iconic lightsabers.

It remains unclear just how this story would fit in with the new coming trilogy, but one of Vulture's insiders suspects it'll be a standalone set sometime after Return of the Jedi, rather than a numbered episode.

With all this Star Wars stuff hitting the fan lately, I'm having a hard time reacting. My Star Wars senses have been dulled, perhaps. What do you think? Is this going to be good? A disaster?